Primordial

Chapter 35

Cramped together in the tiny cabin, fear was a heavy presence among them. Aston held tight to Slater’s hand while she maintained her grip on Carly.

“What do we do now?” Carly asked weakly.

Slater shook her head, but Aston’s ire was up. He had had enough and refused to take any more. “We have to get out of here. We’re going to bust out and leave those idiots to it.” How, exactly, they were going to accomplish that, he couldn’t say.

“Hey, look, there’s someone there,” Slater said, eyes narrowed at the porthole. “On the lake shore.”

The man wore a loose-fitting robe, the hood pulled up. “I saw him while we were on deck,” Aston said. “And then Joaquin pulled a gun on us. He must have been there when all hell broke loose.”

They watched the dark figure move slowly in the shadows of the trees. Their view also afforded them clear sight of the net being let out again and the hooded man seemed very interested in it. He gestured with something.

“What’s he got?” Slater asked.

“Looks like a bundle of twigs wrapped in cloth.” Aston frowned. “He was chanting before, but I couldn’t hear what. He’s probably still doing it.”

“Can’t Holloway or Joaquin see him or hear him?” Carly asked.

“Too preoccupied, I guess.”

Slater narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as she gazed at the figure. “He looks like some kind of religious nut.”

“He probably is,” Carly said. “You know, some kind of pagan. I’ll bet he worships the lake monster.”

“I suppose,” Slater admitted. “All the lore and legend around this thing, it wouldn’t be a surprise if at least some of the locals were nutters for it. If there’s a tradition of human sacrifice surrounding the monster, that indicates religion of some sort. It makes perverse sense.”

Aston shook his head, brow creased. “Even so, what’s he doing? Just watching?”

“What if he’s developed some level of rapport?” Carly whispered. “Like, can he communicate with it or control it with that voodoo doll-looking thing?”

Aston laughed nervously. “It’s insane to suggest anyone could communicate with a dinosaur, but after what we’ve seen all bets are off.”

“You can train a dog,” Carly said quietly. “Give it a tasty treat every time it does the right thing.”

Aston and Slater turned to stare at her. “You think he’s trained that monster by rewarding it with tasty humans?” Aston asked.

Carly shrugged.

“Where is it?” Holloway’s muffled voice was strident, affronted, from the deck above.

They heard some murmur in response from Joaquin.

“Well we need to lure it back again!” Holloway barked. “This time we’ll zap it the moment the net is closing, shock it and wrap it up at the same time. I will have that beast. And while you’re doing that, I’ll man the harpoon. If it looks like she’s escaping again, I’ll shoot her. I’d rather have her alive, but I’m going to get her one way or the other.”

There was more conversation, dropped too low for them to make out. The man in the trees continued to sway and wave his rustic icon. Cold realization settled over Aston.

“We have to find a way out,” he said. “Right now.”

“They have guns.” Slater glanced up at the ceiling.

“I know, but they’re busy. Holloway’s preoccupied. There’s a dinghy right outside, and the dive platform is only a few paces from that door. We bust out, grab the boat and get the hell out of dodge. Come on!”

He turned in the small space, took the two steps he could manage, and drove one shoulder into the door. He bounced off with a bark of pain.

“This is stronger than it looks.”

But it was only an internal door, surely not built to withstand any punishment. He needed to get it open before Joaquin or Holloway heard the commotion and came down to investigate. The women moved to either side to allow him more space and he ran at it again. It flexed in its frame, but didn’t crack.

“Damn this thing!” Aston yelled and ran again. He bounced off once more, but the door hinges squealed a sound of damage and protest.

“You’re almost there,” Slater said. “Why don’t you let me try? We’ll take turns or you’ll hurt yourself.”

Seeing reason, Aston moved to the side, resisting the urge to rub his shoulder, while Slater backed up and turned. Before she could take a run at it, the door swung open. Holloway and Joaquin stood outside, guns leveled at the three of them.

Ice flooded Aston’s gut.

“Start with her,” Holloway said, flicking the barrel of his revolver toward Carly.

“What..?” Carly started.

Aston knew what was about to happen and red fury slipped over his vision. “No!” he shouted and dove at Joaquin as the big man stepped into the cramped cabin. He caught Joaquin’s gun hand and drove his good shoulder into the man’s chest. They stumbled back, locked in a tussle for the weapon. Joaquin slammed into the doorframe, grunting in pain. He drove a knee into Aston’s ribs and Aston repaid him with a head butt that caught him on the bridge of the nose.

“That is enough!” Holloway yelled and Aston had a moment to see the billionaire’s arm raised before the butt of the revolver cracked into his temple.

Blackness swept in from the edges of his vision and sound whined away to silence. Something hard hit his back and he realized it was the deck. He heard distant screaming, a sharp slap, more screaming, and a door slammed.

Aston groggily turned onto his hands and knees, and shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears. As his vision came back he saw Slater sitting on the edge of the bunk, one hand pressed to her cheek. Tears of anger and pain streaked her face. He spun around. The cabin door was shut and locked. Carly was no longer with them. He heard her screaming.

“That son of a bitch!” Aston yelled, scrambling up to the porthole.

“He’s not really going to do it, is he?” Slater asked quietly.

Cold certainty chilled Aston’s marrow. “Of course he is. There’s nothing he won’t do. I’m sure of it.”

Carly’s screams were interrupted by dull thwacks and then she began sobbing. More hits and a sharp cry and then she fell silent.

“Take her legs,” Holloway said from directly above them. “On three. One, two, three!”

Slater joined Aston at the porthole and they stared in horror as Carly arced out over the water, clad in a bright orange life vest. She hit the lake and cried out weakly, arms flailing like they were made of rubber. Her face was swollen, bruised and bloody, one eye shut. Blood leaked from her mouth and from several knife cuts along her forearms.

Slater cried quietly. “We have to save her,” she whimpered.

Aston turned, ran full tilt at the cabin door, and bounced back hissing in pain, clasping his nearly dislocated shoulder. He felt like a child trapped in an adult world, impotent in the face of one stupid door. Slater gasped and he turned back to the porthole.

The figure on the shore was now dancing violently back and forth, his strange icon held in both hands above his head. In the dim moonlight they saw the lower half of his face, his mouth moving in a frantic chant. Then he leaned his head back and released an unearthly sound, like an ululating wolf howl that echoed out across the lake.

“What the hell was that?” they heard Holloway ask.

Aston could imagine the bastard scanning the lake, looking for the source of the disquieting cry.

And then, maybe a hundred and fifty feet from the Merenneito, the water began to churn and the huge form of the creature surfaced for a moment and then submerged almost immediately.

Slater gripped Aston’s hand again and they stared, frozen by fear and helplessness. The zealot on the shore howled once more, then whistled a high-pitched call. The creature’s back broke the surface sixty feet nearer, spines flicking up as it moved, gems of lake water glittering in the patchy moonlight.

“Here she comes.” Holloway’s voice rang with glee.

Carly sobbed and thrashed, kicked her legs trying to head for the back of the boat and safety.

“Don’t let her swim to the boat!” Holloway yelled. “Hurry up.”

Aston and Slater both jumped as two quick gunshots severed the night and Carly bucked in the water, crying out in pain. Her face twisted, eyes squeezed shut, and she rolled in the water and would have sunk if not for the life vest holding her up. She sobbed again, swallowed water, coughed.

“Carly!” Slater screamed, banging at the porthole. And then the creature was on her.

It burst up from the depths, two halves of tooth-crammed jaw appearing either side of her, and the rest of the massive form came behind. It slammed its jaws shut as its front fins broke the surface and Carly’s cries were silenced in one, two, three quick snaps, and the monster fell sideways back into the lake.

“Now!” Holloway yelled.

The winch arm wailed as it motors drew the net around again, and blue arcs of electricity crackled between the small buoys. The monster seemed to convulse once on the surface and then thrashed, sending up gouts of water in massive waves.

“Faster!” Holloway shouted and the winch arm motors screamed as they were cranked up. “It’s working.”

The net gathered and electricity arced once more. The creature twisted and turned on itself, rapidly running out of room to move. It flexed violently and let out a low, hollow rumble, water churning white and rocking the Merenneito again. The winch protested against the deck, electricity surged, and the net drew tighter. The boat dipped gut-wrenchingly to one side, the water level almost up the porthole. SCUBA gear, pans, who knew what other gear, crashed and tumbled around in the hold and galley.

“Are we going to capsize?” Slater cried.

Aston couldn’t speak, so mesmerized was he by the grisly scene playing out before him.

The monster slammed its mighty tail once sending up a cloud of water, another burst of electricity flared, and the beast fell still. The Merenneito rocked back up to a stable level and bobbed gently.

Holloway howled with laughter. “We got it! We got the bitch!”

And under his celebrations, Aston heard the madman on the shore yell, “Nooooo!”

The man disappeared into the trees, and silence once again sank over the lake. The creature lay curled up tight in the net, floating just below the surface.

Footsteps battered above them and Holloway said, “Did you hear that?”

“It came from down below, probably,” Joaquin answered.

“Yes, of course. Come on, help me make sure this net is secured.”

Aston stepped away from the porthole, every inch of him trembling in shock and rage. Slater remained frozen in place, staring out over the strangely calm water. Tears streaked her cheeks. The only sound was the winch motor slowly drawing the bulging net fully closed. “Carly,” she implored quietly.

Aston shook his head, lost for words. One thought tumbled over and over in his mind: no way would Holloway let them live after what they’d witnessed. They had to escape, and soon.

“Is it dead?” Slater asked.

Aston moved back to her side. “No idea. Quite possibly, or it might just as likely only be stunned.”

The motors of the winch fell silent as the net finally reached full closure, with the monster bound up tight.

“I can’t believe he actually got it,” Aston said. “I honestly can’t believe it. But I don’t think there’s any way out of that. Especially as it can’t move now and they can zap it again if it wakes.”

As if on cue, the monster weakly flexed, the net bulging one way and then back.

“We caught her alive!” Holloway cried. “Get the cage. I want take a proper look at my prize!”

“Shouldn’t we just tow it in and make sure it’s secure first?” Joaquin asked.

“I want to look at her! Ready the cage and I’ll get the tranq gun. I’ll fill that beast so full of drugs she won’t wake up for a week. We’ll take her in once she’s out.”

“I contacted our people,” Joaquin said. “They’ll meet us at the designated spot but it’s going to take them several hours to get there and set up.”

“What’s he talking about?” Slater asked.

“I assume he’s referring to whatever arrangements he’s made to get this thing out of the country and back to the States. He can’t just haul it into town. Word would spread like wildfire and the Finnish authorities would descend on him like flies on a rotten corpse.”

“We’re not far from the coast. I’ll bet he’s got a ship waiting for him and people lined up to make the transfer. The bastard.” Slater banged her fist against the wall.

Up above, the sounds of feet on deck and the clang of metal rang out.

“Nothing we can do to stop him now. We have to focus on getting away,” Aston said.

“But we’re trapped here!”

“We’ve only tried force. Look around for something that might help.”

They began searching the small room, lifting the mattress, desperate for anything that might give them an edge. Aston pulled open the drawer of the bedside table. Inside lay an old Bible, a loose deck of cards, a few pencils, and a small sewing kit. He rummaged around until his hands closed on something familiar. Smiling in triumph, he held up a screwdriver. “Now this I can use.”

Slater looked from the tool to Aston and back again, and then shrugged. “What are we going to do with that? Poke a hole in the door?”

He pointed to the hinges, fixed to the inside wall of the cabin, each held with three cross-head screws. She smiled and stepped back, gesturing him forward.

With a renewed sense of determination Aston began working at the hinges. Three of them, top, middle and bottom of the door. He concentrated, working as fast as he could, though the screwdriver was really too small for the job. It kept skipping and slipping free.

“Take your time,” Slater said. “Those two are pretty busy up there.”

As she spoke, a metallic bang on the side of the boat rang out and feet clattered past outside the door of their impromptu cell. They were still and silent for a moment, then the feet passed back the other way, accompanied by Holloway’s grunts of effort. They heard the ring of an air tank clipping a door frame, and then the sounds receded back above them.

Aston returned to work on the hinges, leaning in hard and working slowly at the screw. It turned a fraction and then slipped. “Damn!” he swore as the screwdriver skidded and punctured his free hand.

“Let me take a turn,” Slater said. “You keep watch.” Aston hesitated. “Don’t be a caveman. I know how to turn a screw.” She snatched the tool and set to work while Aston watched from the small window. He caught a glimpse of movement near the shore and at the limit of his field of view he spotted the robed and hooded man pushing a wooden rowboat out onto the water. The oars silently hit the lake and the man rowed expertly away toward the far side of the boat and out of Aston’s sight.

“What are you up to?” Aston muttered to himself.

The man had exulted when the creature took Carly and cried out in horror when Holloway had bagged the beast. Was he about to attempt to rescue it?

More clattering and voices caught Aston’s attention and he looked up to see a large shark cage being lowered over the side. Flippered feet were pressed against the bottom of it and as it passed the window he clearly saw Holloway, in full SCUBA gear, eyes ablaze with a zealous fire. He held a large gun in one hand, like an oversized automatic pistol with an extra-long barrel. In the other hand he clutched a plastic case of six over-sized syringe darts, filled with a straw-yellow liquid. Aston recognized the arrangement. He’d used similar himself on large marine mammals from time to time. But he wondered if six large doses would be anything like enough to make that monster even slightly woozy.

The cage and Holloway sank below the window and disappeared under the water. Aston tried to imagine what the billionaire was seeing down there in the murky lake, eerily lit by the glare of the hull-mounted halogens. It was nearly full night now, but the moon, though bright, was quickly becoming occluded by ever-thickening clouds. Stormy weather moved swiftly in from the south. He saw Holloway’s flashlight spike through the flatter glow of the spots and sweep left and right as the man inspected his prize.

The surface of the lake began to dimple with fat raindrops as the bad weather finally reached them. The moonlight faded altogether as clouds closed in and the rain quickly increased in intensity. The rush of the rain hitting the Merenneito and the lake filled the air, making every other sound secondary. A wind whipped up as the rain grew heavier still. Aston stared, surprised at the speed with which the conditions had changed. But it was all academic now, with the prize bagged and about to be doped. Would Holloway have enough doses there? Aston’s scientific brain kicked into gear, trying to estimate size and weight, guess what drug the billionaire might have, how much he would need. Slater worried at the screws of the hinges. It became darker and darker outside.

A sudden blistering flash of lightning lit up the night and thunder smashed through the sky. Aston cried out as the brightness briefly illuminated a shape right outside the window.

“Slater!” he whispered sharply. “Look!”

She hurried over and lightning flashed again. The robed figure had rowed, obviously unseen, around the Merenneito and stood in his dinghy to reach up and grasp the ropes of the dive cage. He had no idea Aston and Slater were only inches away, watching as he sawed through the cage bindings with a large Bowie knife.

With a thunk and a sudden rocking of his rowboat, the man successfully cut the tether and the rope slipped beneath the surface as the cage sank like a stone. The man in the boat staggered at the change in tension and sat down hard as lightning lit up the night again.

Aston and Slater both stifled cries as the face of the mysterious zealot was revealed in stark, white light and black shadows. Alvar Laine sheathed his knife with a grin and took up his oars again.

“What the actual fuck?” Aston whispered. “He’s… That’s…” He trailed off, lost for words. “He faked his own death?” he managed eventually. “How?”

“Who cares how? He clearly decided we were getting too close and needed to throw some fucking interference at us. I’d say he succeeded!” Slater spun back to the cabin door and set to work once more with her screwdriver. “We have to get out of here right now!” she said.

The top hinge was free and she had two out of three screws freed from the middle one. As the third screw came free, Joaquin’s voice cried out from above.

“Ellis? Ellis! Mister Holloway!”

“He’s just realized the cage has gone down,” Aston said. “Hurry!”

The third screw came free and Aston jammed his hands against the top of the door, forced his fingers into the gap the removed hinges allowed, and hauled back. The door flexed in its frame. Slater joined him and they wrenched hard twice more and the lowest hinge gave up its grip on the wall, shearing out through the tough plastic, and the door fell in. They tumbled back with it, tangled atop one another and jumped to their feet with grins of triumph.

“Let’s go!” Aston said.

They ran out into the SCUBA room, the back doors open to the dive platform.

“The dinghy is gone!” Slater said, aghast.

Aston clasped his hands on top of his head. “Laine must have cut it loose. We are surrounded by fucking lunatics!”

An angry roar drew his attention and he turned to see Joaquin barreling toward him, the huge man’s face twisted in a snarl of rage.